The Bengals water
polo
team is ready to start their next season after both the girls and boys teams won the 5A state championship last year. The club has
been around since 2004 but has significantly improved since Mike Morgan took
over as head coach in 2014. Morgan said
when he started, the girls team hadn’t won a game and the boys team was just
average, despite a lot of talent on both teams.

“Going into the spring 2015 season, everyone knew Brighton
had been around for a while as a club. But our teams really weren’t that
strong,” Morgan said. “I don’t think other coaches expected us to do as well as
we did. We ended up with both teams in the 5A state finals.”

The girls lost the final game by one point,
but the boys ended up winning the championship. In the 2016 season, the girls
had a tougher schedule but it ended up paying off when they won the state
championship for the first time in the Brighton High School history. The boys
also won their state championship, the second in a row.

Morgan said because of the success of the team, other
coaches are gunning to take the top spot away from the Bengals. However, Morgan
isn’t worried.

“We lose players every year but that’s kind of the fun of
coaching high school water polo. Every year, it’s a different team dynamic and
you have to work in a way to leverage every player’s strengths and to fill each
other’s weaknesses to have the strongest team,” Morgan said. “It’s a lot of fun
and it’s very rewarding and filling.”

Though based out of Brighton High School, the Bengals water
polo
team is technically a club team that is registered with the USA Water Polo
Association, and they practice
at Cottonwood Heights Recreation Center.

“The structure of the league in Utah is if a kid swims for
their high school and that high school has an affiliated water polo team, they
have to play water polo for that club,” Morgan said. “Kids who play on our team
are all from around here or are from high schools that
don’t have water polo teams.”

While the majority of players are from Brighton High School,
the team also has players from Corner Canyon High School in Draper and Alta
High School in Sandy.

The biggest rival every year for the Bengals has been
Herriman High School. Two years ago, Cottonwood High School was also a big
competitor.

“But Viewmont (High School), we met them in the finals for
the girls and the boys last season so I’m expecting them to really bring it
this year as well,” Morgan said. “Maybe there are other dark horses coming up.
You never know.”

Morgan said the great thing about coaching youth competitive
sports like the Bengals water polo
team is the sport might be the only area of the kids’ lives where they can feel
the satisfaction from the hard work. While kids can’t choose to not go to
school, they can choose to be on the team.

“The fruits of their labors, the trophies in the hallway,
it’s due to their hard work, their sacrifice, and
they take responsibility for each win and each loss. I feel that’s tremendously
important,” Morgan said. “My goal for each of the players is that they put in
their best effort to not only work as hard as they can and be to practice on
time but also to make friends with all of their teammates and strengthen the
relationships in the team. By doing those things, we can get the hard work in.”

Eighteen-year-old senior Nicholas Nelson joined the water
polo team because he liked the team aspect of the sport where
players can build off each other.

“Other sports like track or swimming, it’s just the
individual time that creates the team,” Nelson said. “I like how we can work
together to build something that others can’t.”

Last year, Nelson said the team was confident going into the
championship game because they knew they had conditioned enough and built up
the team enough where they knew they would come out on top. This year, Nelson
feels that the team has done a good job of playing everyone equally.

“I like seeing that and I want to see more of that because
we definitely grow when everyone on the team is included rather than just star
players being given all the time,” Nelson said. “For me, I’m the goalie so I
just want to block as many shots as possible.”

Seventeen-year-old junior Olivia Huntzinger started out
playing water polo after swimming for the Cottonwood Heights aquatics
team.
After seeing her older sister play water polo, she decided to join the water
polo team as well. Like Nelson, she also likes the
team aspect of the sport.

“I like to know that my teammates have my back and I can
support them if they need it,” Huntzinger said. “I like the strategy too.”

Winning the 2016 state championship for the first time in
Brighton High School history was an amazing thing for Huntzinger.

“It was really great for us because the year before, we lost
in the last 10 seconds of the game. They scored another goal and we lost,” she
said. “It was really great and it really brought us closer together and it was
a great way to end the season.”